Navigating the Decolonial Margins of the Kolonialinstitut: An Embodied Reflection of Intellectual Collaboration Among Women of Color in the German Postcolonial City

Abstract

Abstract:This article argues that the neglected and forgotten colonial past of the University of Hamburg shapes and complicates the experiences that non-white people are exposed to in Germany's academic landscapes until today. Black students and lecturers, as well as students and lecturers of color are positioned in a double form of feminized labor and care-educational work that they "owe" fellow students and colleagues, so that they begin seeing violence there, where it is. Efforts to create safer spaces for Black women and women of color chronically fail due to lacking material and emotional resources that the university systematically fails to provide. Instead, it reinforces what we propose to call "the white wall." What can we, women of color together with Black women, learn from the colonial history of our institution in order to transform our failures to collaborate in building decolonial academic communities?